The Dragon's Doom (dragonlance)

by Ed Greenwood

Embra promptly thrust upward with the Living Castle enchantments, and the floor spat the skull-sorceress violently at the ceiling.

  As the shoulder of the sorceress slammed into the stone overhead, the Dwaer fell from her spasming hands. She grabbed at it, once, hopelessly, and Embra used her Dwaer to make her own snatch at the Stone.

  A mistake. Magic exploded between the two Dwaerindim in a thick white arc of snarling lightning that numbed Embra's arm and sent Blackgult's Stone ripping across the chamber, trailing sparks and flames of magic. In a far corner it spun itself crazily into a burst of magic that hurt the eyes… and was gone.

  "Graul!"Embra spat. "Transported the Three alone know where!" She whirled and blasted the falling skull-sorceress again… but this time that cold grin seemed to hold triumph, and all the fury she sent at her foe was snared in a spinning that ended in another burst of magic.

  The ruined bedchamber suddenly held one less mysterious skull-headed sorceress.

  "Graul," Embra panted again bitterly, holding her Dwaer close as if its familiar curves and hardness could console. She felt in need of comfort just now. "Gone, and Father's Stone too, and now we have a new foe and don't even know wh-"

  She bit her lip and called on her Dwaer to try to trace the vanished Stone, as it had done before. In the heart of all this spell-chaos, 'twasn't likely… Yet, if it hadn't gone far, there was a chance… just a chance…

  There was a bestial snarl from behind her, and someone slammed roughly into Embra and clawed at her throat, tearing the cloak away.

  She backed into her attacker, hard, and those hands didn't manage to close on her throat. She blasted him away as gently as she could, and turned to face-

  Her father, of course. Blackgult crouched naked, wild-eyed and panting, clawlike hands reaching for her. With a roar he gathered himself and came at her again-and with a sigh, Embra dodged aside and spun a cage for him out of Dwaer-fire.

  He howled in pain as its bars of fire burned him, and hurled himself against them again and howled all the more. Embra stared at him helplessly as he went on hurling himself into pain-and then, as guards flooded into the room with many torches and a gaping Raulin and Macros, she sat down on the floor, bare as she was, and started to cry.

  Screams split the night in an otherwise pleasant bedchamber in Varandaur. Two shrieks, either side of him, ear-shatteringly close. Hulgor Delcamper came awake bewildered and bolt upright in bed, half-deafened by the frightened cries of… oh, aye: the two chambermaids he'd bedded for the night, Nuelara and… and the other one.

  They were staring at the same thing he was. Hulgor Delcamper blinked at a stone-a rounded, palm-sized lump of fieldstone like any of the thousands of such he'd seen up in the high meadows. But none of them had ever shown the slightest signs of doing what this one was: blazing with white light, and chiming and humming, too, as it floated in the air above his bed, spinning slowly.

  Hulgor found wits enough to curse-though he still couldn't remember the name of the lovely lass on his right-and scrambled across her to snatch up his sword.

  Shaking it out of its scabbard as Nuelara fled and the other lass clung to him, whimpering, the old Delcamper noble shook the chambermaid away, stood up on his bed-and jabbed at the thing.

  He struck home, with a roar of satisfaction-and then the Stone roared, too.

  His blade was ringingly torn apart in twisted, tumbling shards-as a numb-armed, cursing Hulgor Delcamper was flung across the room.

  His landing smashed flat a stool he'd never much liked, and sent his carefully laid out clothes for the morrow tumbling to the floor. He struggled up out of the tangled wreckage with a snarl and stalked back across the room, bare-handed.

  The Stone still hung above his bed, glowing softly and tinkling gently right where it had been when he'd awakened. Like a prowling cat Hulgor slunk up onto the bed, stepped all around the floating rock in a slow, padding circle… and then, very slowly as he swallowed with a very dry throat, reached out for it…

  Silence fell in the shattered house of Morauntauvar of Sirlptar, with its ceiling gone to starshot night sky overhead. Then the Spellmaster of All Aglirta heard the tiny, fitful crackle of flames rising from his slain foe's body.

  This had all gone wrong. Sirlptar's self-styled mightiest wizard was dead, but magic Ambelter should have won here was mostly destroyed. Seething, the Spellmaster started to search, pulling his shielding-spell tightly around him.

  He'd found an unscorched book of spells and some sort of enchanted orb ere the air flashed behind him, and he whirled around to find-four Serpent-priests, their hands raised in gestures of parley. Standing with them were the seven sleepy, hastily roused mages of Sirlptar that Ingryl had expected to see-for it was Sirl custom to make revenge pacts with other mages. One of them was rather angrily specifying quite a large sum of money to a priest-so these wizards must be hasty, last-moment hires.

  "Spellmaster of Silvertree," one of the priests called. "Hear us in peace, we ask thee!"

  "Spellmaster of All Aglirta," Ingryl Ambelter corrected coldly. "Swiftly give me good cause why to listen, if you would live."

  "We've unfinished business with Morauntauvar of Sirlptar," the priest replied, "but after farscrying his demise at your hands, 'tis our judgment that you are the more powerful and capable mage, and have the perfect temperament we seek. Are you interested in undertaking the task Morauntauvar had agreed to?"

  The Spellmaster of All Aglirta regarded the Serpent-priests coldly, his Dwaer glowing ready in his hands. "That would depend very much," he replied politely, "on what that task was."

  The priest turned and murmured something to the priest beside him, who in turn uttered a brief incantation-and vanished, along with the Sirl wizards, leaving just a trio of Serpent-priests.

  The Spellmaster frowned, and used the Dwaer to visibly strengthen his shielding. If they reappeared on all sides of him… or on the floor below, and blasted in unison upward…

  "Certain ambitious Brethren of the Serpent," the priest said quickly, "had just hired Morauntauvar to aid them with his spells in their coming bid for the throne of Aglirta."

  Ingryl Ambelter lifted an eyebrow. "Well, now… say more. Please."

  22

  The Many Uses of Dwaerindim

  By the Three," Craer said thankfully, stumbling sleepily into the waiting bath, "but I could get used to being an overduke!"

  Tshamarra smiled up at him from the scented waters. "Servants have their uses." She offered him a goblet from a tray beside her, shielding it with a hand against his splashings. "Warm mulled Arl-wine?"

  Craer made a face, and then changed his mind and snared the goblet. "I'd better accept. The way our lives have been unfolding this last while, safe food and drink is best snatched whenever offered by opportunity-or pretty sorceresses who aren't wearing any clothes." He paused, just before reaching the dregs. "This wine is safe, isn't it?"

  Tshamarra shrugged. "I'm still alive." She sat up and rolled over, dripping-a delightful sight that Craer stopped to appreciate-and cast a rather sly look back over her shoulder at him. "Seeing as you're up and you've been watered, how about washing my back?"

  "Was that an artful way of asking something else, Lady?" Craer asked the ceiling, as he set his goblet down carefully.

  "Lord Delnbone, surely you've learned by now that when I want something of you I ask for it-directly. My back?"

  With a sigh, Craer reached for the bowl of scented lave-oil and the scraper, and set to work.

  Tshamarra almost purred. "There's an itch there, just a little high-ahhh, yes. That's it. Just keep-"

  "Morning," Hawkril Anharu rumbled, from above. Something in his tone made them both jerk their heads up to stare at him.

  "I need you now," the armaragor told Tshamarra. "Hurry!"

  Wordlessly she extended her hand, bare as she was, for him to haul her up out of the bath. Craer swiped oil from her as she went and followed hastily in her wake, snatching the warmed robes the servants had left read
y to dry himself with, and stamping his feet back into his boots as he came.

  "Could Aglirta just possibly arrange to need rescuing next time after we're dressed?" he asked Hawkril, as they hurried to the door and out, scattering servants and guards. The armaragor had already caught up Craer's leathers and dagger-belts and Tshamarra's boots and breeches, but the procurer hastily snatched a few more items-including something to adorn his lady's upper half besides the sharp edge of her own tongue.

  " 'Tisn't Aglirta," Hawkril growled, " 'tis Embra. Em and her father."

  Craer winced. "This isn't going to be one of those bad jokes, is it?"

  "I don't know what it's going to be," the armaragor snarled, as they hurried down passages together. "That's why I came for you."

  Craer put a robe over his lady's shoulders, and they both rubbed themselves as dry as they could as they hastened around corners, past grim-looking guards, and through archways where more guards waited.

  "This is not filling me with carefree joy," Craer observed, as the crowd of courtiers and palace armsmen following them grew. They passed a room where the smells of fresh food wafted forth, and Tshamarra threw her lord a look that at once bade him firmly to behave himself, and at the same time told him that she knew what he was feeling, and felt much the same.

  Flaeros Delcamper and six guards stood in front of the closed doors of Blackgult's chamber. They stepped aside wordlessly as the three overdukes strode up-and Tshamarra swept off her wet robe and unconcernedly laid it in the bard's hands.

  Flaeros barely had time to stare at her bared flesh, drop his jaw, and flush furiously ere Craer took off his robe, too-and cast it over the bard's head.

  "Keep these closed behind us," Hawkril told the guards, as he shouldered his way through the doors. Craer and Tshamarra followed-and halted with identical anxious gasps.

  Blackgult's chamber was burn-scarred, riven, and strewn with heaped, broken furniture. The dead chambermaid's blood had dried, but she still lay sprawled and skull-headed in the wreckage. The center of the room was filled with a humming, glowing, slowly turning cage of magic, greatly grown from what Embra had Stone-spun to imprison her crazed father the night before.

  Blackgult hung awake at its heart of the force-cage, the Dwaer glowing like a sleepless star to his right, and Embra-disheveled and fast asleep, her hair dangling around her-hung in a lesser cage beside her Stone. Both Blackgult and his daughter were wrapped in nightrobes that looked to have been thrown over them rather than donned. Blackgult gave them a brief, intent look as they entered, and then cast his eyes down at the floor below.

  "She's been here all night," Hawkril growled, as Craer and Tshamarra hastily dressed. "Trying to heal him-'mind mend,' she called it. Yon cage has been growing all the while. At first it was thrusting out new bars at her bidding, but she fell asleep sometime in the night-after I did, for I didn't see slumber take her-and then I think he was commanding it, at least sometimes."

  "You sat guard against the doors, sword in your lap, didn't you?" Tshamarra asked softly, tugging her last garment-a silk jerkin-into place.

  "Of course, Lady. 'Twas needful."

  There was a gentle chiming as the slowly, silently rolling cage changed again, some of its bars shifting to join other bars in brief flashes of magic, opening up some of the barriers around Blackgult and drawing him in closer… closer to the glowing Stone.

  Craer's eyes narrowed. "Who's causing that?"

  Hawkril shrugged. "She's asleep, and I dare not try to wake her-so I'd say 'tis the Griffon. It's been proceeding like this since I awakened and fetched you. He was right over yonder, up nigh the wall."

  Tshamarra frowned. "So unless Embra's dream-guiding this, or the Stone itself is doing it, or someone unknown is influencing the Dwaer from afar, Blackgult is bringing himself somehow closer to the Stone."

  She chewed on her lip for a moment, and then added reluctandy, "There's a spell that might…"

  Hawkril shot her a glance. "Do it."

  Craer held up a hand in a "stay all for a moment" gesture. "What befell the Griffon? Do we know?"

  The armaragor shook his head. "Plague come again to bring rage upon him, or some doing of the Dwaer or the skull-sorceress… Em knows not. She did this to hold him until she could go into his wits and find out, so as to heal."

  "I heard him tell Embra about being mind-blasted in a Dwaer-battle," Tshamarra said quietly. "His memory and reason have been coming and going, all this time since. Yet just yestereve I heard an old servant here say the Lord Blackgult now seemed like his old, old self, years younger and smiling again." She shrugged and waved at the chiming, shifting cage. "So if he's doing that, what do we do?"

  Craer glanced at her and then called: "Blackgult! Lord Blackgult!" The caged man did not look up, or give any other indication that he'd heard. The procurer frowned, and then shouted: "Old Slyhips!"

  Hawkril gave Craer a swift, sidelong look. That had been a name none of Blackgult's troops had dared to use to his face, for fear of being personally beaten before dismissal-a beating that usually involved jaw-breaking, or the removal of teeth, or both.

  Again, the Golden Griffon seemed not to have heard.

  Craer, Tshamarra, and Hawkril looked at each other grimly as the cage chimed and changed again. Blackgult was definitely being brought closer to the center… where the Dwaer was.

  Hawkril gazed up at his longtime lord. The Golden Griffon, for years considered the most desirable, dashing-and dangerous-man in the kingdom. For much of that time Hawkril Anharu had been his most trusted armaragor.

  And now, trust was… Hawk sighed, absently tapped the pommel of his sword for a breath or two as he thought hard, and then turned to Tshamarra. "You had a spell?"

  The Lady Talasorn nodded. "A way to touch your lady's mind. 'Twill make sure she's unharmed, see if Blackgult or anyone has her in spell-thrall, and wake her if we deem awakening best. It should also tell us if she's still in control of this cage. Whatever we find, the touch of my magic should do her no harm."

  Hawkril waved at Embra. "Do it."

  "Wake her, too?"

  Hawkril eyed the cage as it contracted yet again, set his jaw, and nodded. "Aye. Do that too."

  The Lady Talasorn drew the bell-cut sleeves of her jerkin back to her elbows, struck a dramatic pose designed to keep them there, and carefully cast a spell. The cage nickered, the Dwaer flashed with momentary bright fire, and something almost visible sped from it to Tshamarra's fingertips. There it winked silently in a brief, half-seen explosion of phantom sparks, and was gone.

  And Tshamarra reeled, winced in pain, and sank to her knees, holding her head.

  "Tash?" Craer's hands were cradling her shoulders with falcon-swift speed. She shuddered, groaned, and then sagged into his arms. The procurer shot a look of alarm up at Hawkril, who shrugged helplessly and bent over the stricken sorceress.

  "Lady?" he rumbled.

  Tshamarra clenched her teeth in a spasm of agony, and then direw back her head, opened her eyes again, and gasped, "Full Dwaer-thrust… my own magic, back at me… Woa-ho, that hurt!"

  And then the cage sang. A high, splendid chord of bell-like tones echoed back from the cracked and scorched walls, making all three overdukes look up.

  Ezendor Blackgult grinned down at them in savage triumph, dark fire in his eyes-and the Dwaer in his hands. He hung now at the heart of the cage, its glowing bars falling away from him like so many severed strands of spiderweb.

  "Griffon?"

  "Blackgult?"

  He answered their anxious hails with a wordless snarl of triumph and waved the Dwaer as if it was a ball he intended to hurl. Echoing its movements, the cage swirled around him. Then its glowing bars of magic streamed at the slumbrous form of the Lady Silvertree like the boldly reaching tentacles of the great glistening sea-beasts who were wont to snatch and drag sailors and their ships down beneath the waves.

  The bright strands fell around Embra in a tangle, a net of entwined and fused force th
at shocked her awake. She was still gasping and shaking her head to clear it when the Dwaer flashed again-and was gone, Blackgult with it!

  Embra screamed, and reached vainly for the empty air where it had been, shaking her head now in denial.

  Tshamarra peered up at her, face still twisted in pain. "Em? How can I free you from that? I… I don't know if I can work magic, just now…"

  The Lady of Jewels bent her head, drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and then said slowly, "No. Save yourself the pain. I can… Hawk, are you there?"

  "Lady," the armaragor growled, shoving forward against the collapsed cage of glowing magic until its power brought him to a halt, flaring warningly, "I am. How can I help?"

  "Use a rope or something, and drag me down through all this, until I can touch the floor-or a wall. Then keep back. Whatever you do, don't try to charge through what's left of my cage to reach me."

  The armaragor frowned for a moment, and then spun around and charged across the room, slipping and sliding over rubble, to snatch up fallen tapestries. Some of them still sported great gilded and tasseled pullcords, and he sliced these from them with grunts of satisfaction, tossing them back over his shoulder to where Craer could scurry and catch each one up, knotting them together with swift skill.

  The two men returned in a surprisingly short time with the heavy rope in their hands, and tossed it up into the cage… where, despite Craer's shrewd throw, it tangled in dozens of glowing strands of force-strands that hung motionless, no matter how hard the two men tugged. Tshamarra staggered to her feet as she watched them struggle, bewilderment on her face.

  "A stone," Embra called. "Knot it around a stone, and throw it over me, so it falls onto me."

  "But Em-"

  "After what I've been through this night, and the burning these strands are dealing me now," the Lady Silvertree said patiently, "getting hit in the face with a rock will seem like a child's caress. Truly. Now tie the grauling thing around a stone!

  In sudden haste the procurer and the armaragor complied, and then Craer swallowed, swung the rope a few times-and threw, hard and high.